Why Finnish Boys Are Bad For You
by TheBlindWlHearAndTheLameWlTlk
Summary: Claire had a nice, safe, boring life, until Ville Valo gambled his way into it. Rating for swearing, alcohol abuse, and maaaaybe sexual themes later on.
1. Chapter 1

It was a Thursday. It was cold, even by Finnish standards, and raining outside. I sat in cozy little coffee shop, quite a ways off the beaten path, and sipped a Chai tea. I'd been sitting in the same spot for the last half hour, not yet wanting to brave the icy weather outside.

Despite it's hole in the wall location, the little coffee shop was packed to capacity of other's trying to get out of the rain. So to ease the time, I was people-watching.

The doorbell clanged and I looked up to see a dark haired man in a beanie and hoodie walk in. He was sopping wet but didn't really seem to mind. In fact, he had a large smile on his face as he walked up to the barista and ordered a tea.

I went back to people-watching as he chatted with the barista in Finnish. There was a blonde girl sitting between two older men a couple tables away from me, and I was making up dialogue for them in my head when I heard a voice being cleared above me.

"Is this seat taken, love?" I looked up to see the man I'd just watched walk in smiling at me.

"Um, no. Have a seat." I gave him a shy smile and then blushed when he kept standing there and I realized he couldn't because my messenger bag was in the only available chair.

I moved my bag and he chuckled and took the seat next to me. He sipped his tea and stared distractedly out the window, so I went back to the blonde girl and her companions.

"What are you doing?" I glanced back over to the beanie-wearing man, who was watching me with an amused expression on his face, and I realized I'd giggled out loud. i flushed.

"Ummm, I'm people-watching." He raised an eyebrow. "When you watch people and make up what they're saying. Like adlibbing, I guess..." His grin had grown. I looked away, embarasssed.

A few moments passed by with me fiddling my thumbs, and him sipping his tea. "So, what do you think that guys saying?" I looked up to see him nodding at an overweight guy at the bar who was leaning towards a younger girl, who was clearly uncomfortable with his attention.

"Hmmm..." I lowered my voice and adopted a heavy Finnish accent. "So, come here often...?" I laughed. "Alright that was lame. What do you think?"

He laughed. And then turned to look straight at the other man. His eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "Well, first off, he's obviously American. Probably a tourist." He cleared his throat an imitated a hokey Western accent. "Hey, there, Pretty Lady. How you doin'?" He made a pouty face. "Don't wanna talk? Okay. That's one thing I like about Finnish chicks. They know how to keep their mouths shut. Aaaaaand, big tits." He finished off with with a nod and a kissy motion.

I busted up laughing, and pretty soon we were both clutching our sides and wiping tears.

"He's definitely Finnish, tho." I turned to him when I finished laughing.

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, and why's that?"

I crossed my arms. "Just look at the way he's dressed. That's pure hokey Finnish."

He was shaking his head as I finished talking. "No, no, no. That's obviously a level of dorky that only an American tourist could achieve. The t-shirt was probably bought in a Finnish store, but the man underneath is alllllll American."

It was my turn to shake my head. He grinned at me. "Don't believe me? Wanna bet on it, then?"

I laughed. "Sure. What're we betting on?"

He grinned. "Tonight, me and some friends are going out, if I win, you have to accompany me."

I contemplated it. He seemed nice enough, and I really hadn't been out since moving to Finland a month ago, and I'd been itching to experience some Finnish culture. "Alright, deal. What if I win?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, what do you want?"

I blinked. "Ummm, I don't know. Have you lived in Finland long?"

He laughed. "Oh yeah, quite some time."

"Alright, then if I win, you have to take me sight-seeing."

He smiled. "Seems like a fair deal. You're not going to win, though." He winked at me and stood up. "Come on."

And so, we creeped towards the man at the bar, trying to be subtle. Our competition quickly went from whether the fat man was Finnish or American, to who could find the most ridiculous reason to sneak the closest to him. I gained the lead when I pretended to rub my eye and pop my contact out on the floor of the shop. The guy in the beanie had stopped to watch my crawl around on the floor. A few other patrons had even joined in my search.

I crawled as close to the fat man as was polite, and sat back on my haunches to listen, occasionally patting the floor. He'd quickly gotten over the three idiots, well, one idiot and two helpful Finns crawling around on the floor, and gone back to hitting on the girl next to him. To my horror, he spoke perfect English. He even had a Texan accent, just like Beanie Guy had predicted. I sighed.

I pretended to find my contact and thanked the people that'd helped me look. Beanie Guy met me back at the table.

"Well?" He raised an eyebrow. I gave a dramatic sigh.

"Looks like I'm going out tonight."

He laughed at me.

"Hope you like beer."

I laughed. "Lovely."

He smiled. "So... " I looked up at him. "What about the girl over there...?"

About two hours and six teas each later, we'd dissected every patron in the bar, and Beanie Guy announced that he needed to get going.

He pulled out his cell phone. "Here, trade me." He entered his number into my phone and I put mine in his.

"I'll text you later and tell you where to meet us." He smiled and hugged me goodbye.

After he left I realized that I hadn't even gotten his name.


	2. Chapter 2

It was 9 o' clock that same night when my phone buzzed. I was laying on my bed with my laptop, composing an email to my best friend back home.

The first text message was an address in downtown Helsinki. The second said '10:30 alright?'.

'Ya. See you then. :)'

I finished my email quickly, glad that I could finally tell Sasha that I was going to go out partying, instead of being a shut- in.

I stood up and stretched. I'd taken a shower when I got home, but I hadn't known how I was supposed to dress for the night. In fact, I still didn't know how to dress. I groaned.

After much searching through my clothes, I ended up in black leather pants and a black tank top with a long sleeved maroon lace shirt over it, so I could hopefully pass at most clubs. I left my hair down and yanked on my black ankle boots as I ran out the door, already running late.

I got lucky and the address wasn't far from my apartment, I wasn't quite farmiliar with all the Finnish streets yet.

The address ended up being for a hotel. Right about the time I got there my phone buzzed. I had a text from 'Beanie Guy' saying '204' so i set off to find room 204.

I didn't have to search very hard. As soon as I reached the second floor, I could hear the pounding bass from the room at the end of the hall. And sure enough, it was the right room.

A guy with crazy black hair opened the door. And then I realized that I still didn't know Beanie Guy's real name. I blushed.

"I'm, uh, looking for a guy. He's really tall. Like 6 foot something, and he has dark hair. Possibly wearing a beanie?" He blinked at me.

"He invite me, he just didn't tell me his name... Sorry..." The black haired guy was beginning to look highly amused.

He started to play along. "Deep voice, maybe? Green eyes?"

I grinned. "Yeah! That's the one! Seen him around?"

He laughed and nodded, holding the door open for me, and beckoning me inside. "Come on in. He said he'd invited a cute broad and you're behind on the drinking already."

There were about six or seven people in the hotel room, all in various states of drunkeness. I followed the dark haired man out onto the balcony of the hotel, where there were four more people standing around and drinking. Beanie Guy was leaning against the railing, smoking a cigarette and drinking a Jaegarmeister.

My guide turned back to me and gestured at Beanie Guy. "Is this the tall, dark, and handsome you were looking for?" I nodded and walked to Beanie Guy, taking a spot against the railing next to him.

He smirked at me. "Handsome, huh?"

"Shut up. You should have heard me trying to describe you to him," I nodded towards the other guy, "when he answered the door and I realized I still didn't know your name."

"Ville." His Finnish accent was very strong when he said his name. "Yours?"

"I'm Claire."

He smiled at me. "Pretty name. Now that we've gotten the pesky introductions out of the way, how about a beer, Claire?"

I laughed. "Would love one, thanks." I followed him into the house. There was a table piled high of beer, and a few other alcohols. He handed me a bottle from the stack, after opening it.

"We like to get a little buzzed before we actually go out clubbing. Makes the whole experience more enjoyable."

I raised an eyebrow at the pile of beer bottles. "A little buzzed?"

He laughed and shrugged. "Okay, moderately buzzed." I rolled my eyes.

I glanced around the room, noticing that most of the people there were wearing lots of black clothing, so the outfit I picked fit right in. "So, who are all these people?"

"Most of them I don't know, actually." He pointed to a guy in the corner. "That's Mige. He's a good friend of mine. I've known him since we were practically in diapers."

He pointed out two other guys in a corner. "That's Linde and Burton. Also good friends. The guy that let you in was Jussi. There's another guy named Jyrki floating around here somewhere, and that's everyone I know in this group."

He grabbed a couple more beers from the table and I followed him out to a table on the balcony.

"So, Claire, where are you from?" He opened anothe beer for himself.

"Oklahoma. A town called Tulsa. What about you?"

"Right here in Helsinki. Why'd you move to Finland?"

"I'm going to be attending the University of Helsinki in the fall." I noticed that he'd almost downed his beer already and I was only halfway through mine.

"What are you studying?" I laughed.

"What is this, like twenty questions or something?" He chuckled.

"I guess so. Do you mind?"

"Not really. I've got a Bachelor's in Psychology, and now I'm going for my Master's. If we're playing twenty questions, does that mean I get to ask you questions, too?"

He laughed. "Ask away."

I nodded towards the beer he'd just opened, the third since we'd sat down at the table. "Big drinker?"

"I guess so. I go on binges, a lot. For a while I just won't drink at all, and then all of a sudden I'm drinking every day and night, in an endless cycle. I have a bit of an addictive personality, I guess." He shrugged. "Does drinking bother you?"

I shook my head. "My best friend back home, Sasha, is a huge party girl, and she's always dragged me along with her." I finally finished my first beer, and Ville handed me a second.

"So what's with the drinking BEFORE going out to get drunk?"

Ville shrugged. "We tend to run up quite a tab at bars. Plus, we find that bartenders like to cut us off way too early." He winked at me.

A yell came from inside the house, followed by several cheers. I looked at Ville questioningly.

He stood up. "Looks like it's time to head out." He tossed our empties in a trash bag hanging from the balcony door.

I followed him through the hotel room. We joined a group of about ten others to hike down the stairs. Most of them were already very drunk, and there were a few incidents of people stumbing on the stairs.

Despite the cool night air, the group of us that trekked down the street were in high spirits. The group laughed and supported each other down the street. Ville was holding up the man he'd told me to be Mige, who had one arm around Ville's torso, and was animating his off-key singing with the other. Ville put his other arm around my waist and pulled me closer to the two of them, and then joined in Mige's horrible singing.

A bottle of flavored Vodka appeared out of somebody's coat pocket, and was passed around the group. I took a swig from the bottle, hoping no one in the group was diseased.

We stumbled down a couple of blocks, the group leaning on each other, and still ceaselessly laughing. We stopped at a grey brick building. The group walked around the side, and we crawled through a basement door in the ground, and then walked single-filed through a dark corridor. If it weren't for the vibrations of the bass in the stone floor, I would have wondered where I was being taken.

The club was dark and smoky, with flashing strobe lights and neon backlighting the bar, where the group I was with immediately headed. The mass of writhing bodies on the dancefloor was where I headed. The patrons were cloaked in black with the occasional metallic flash. The music they were grinding to seemed to be a mix of techno and heavy metal.

I pushed my way into the dance floor, squeezing in between a purple- haired girl and a a bald guy. The girl turned and started dancing with me.

I danced with the girl until my leather pants were starting to stick unpleasantly, so I pushed back towards the bar. I spotted Ville and Jyrki sitting at a table off to the side of the dancefloor, and joined them.

Ville passed me a flask of something when I sat down. "Enjoying yourself?"

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Immensely. You don't dance?"

He shrugged. "Not drunk enough yet." I laughed and took another swig from the flask, which I'd decided was Whiskey.

"So what is this place?"

Ville shrugged. "I'm not sure it actually has a name. It's not a well-known place."

After several shots of Vodka each, courtesy of Jyrki, I dragged Ville onto the dancefloor. Despite being quite drunk, he was a pretty good dancer, to my immense surprise.


	3. Chapter 3

The next few months were filled with parties, HIM concerts, and band practices that Ville always wanted me to tag along to. For some reason that escaped me, he seemed to be fascinated with me.

He liked to sit on my couch and watch me while I painted on the floor. He was often asking me to draw or paint something for him, and after a while it got to be a habit for me to sit and sketch him or the rest of the band during practice, or when he was composing a song. I had drawn more pictures of him in the few months that we'd known each other than I had anyone else in my entire life.

As fascinated as he was with me, I was probably more so with him. He could act like a child sometimes, sitting in weird positions and chewing on his lip or the pen when a song was giving him trouble. And other times he acted just like the rockstar that he was, shirtless in his low-cut jeans, watching me with smoldering eyes and giving me a suggestive smirk while he was on his post-show adrenaline high.

He showed me his artwork, as well. He liked to sketch and paint like I did, and though he didn't have as much free time as I did to pursue visual art, he had a talent that I did not -being able to draw a person from memory- and I had several sketches he had done of me hanging on my bedroom wall.

My weekdays were filled with school, which I found didn't stress me out like it use to, and my nights and weekends were filled with Ville and his band and friends.

Being around Ville gave me a sense of confidence that I hadn't had before. If this wonderfully talented man thought I was worthwhile, then I thought I was, too. I stopped worrying so much about what other people would think of me. I started dressing more boldly, and put dark blue streaks in my blonde hair. And one night while drunk and hanging out with Ville and one of his tattoo artist friends, the man had talked me into letting him pierce my lip, so I had a little silver stud in the right corner of my lower lip that I liked to chew on.

Overall, I felt like an almost completely different person than I used to be, and I was definitely enjoying myself. I was completely content with my life.

'The one downside of 'Life With Ville', though, was the hangovers', I thought from my perch in front of the toilet.

XxXxX

I was in my last class of the day, working on my homework for the night and simultaneously writing down the notes that the professor wrote down on the whiteboard. There was a party at some bar that Ville liked in Espoo. I had no idea what Espoo was, but according to my cell phone, was about ten miles from Helsinki. But whatever it was, there would be a party, and I would be lucky to make it home in time for school tomorrow, there was no chance I'd have time to do my homework.

Luckily I finished the assignment before the bell rang, leaving only the homework from my last class for me to do during first period tomorrow. I got up and ducked into my messenger bag strap and grabbed the bag of clothes and toiletries I had so that I could get ready at Ville's, and was out of the classroom before anyone else. I knew Ville would be waiting for me in the parking lot, either with Mige and his car, or to accompany me home on the bus, as usual when there was a party that night.

When I got to the parking lot I followed the sound of loud music to Mige's car. I tossed my messenger bag and pink duffel bag into the back seat and crawled in after it. I returned Ville's smile from the front seat. He looked cool as usual, with his long legs encased in destroyed jeans and feet clad in Chucks' stretched out and resting on the dashboard.

"Hey, darlin'. How was school?" When he talked a stream of cigarette smoke spilled out of his lips and I smiled at him.

"It was alright, for a Tuesday."

It was apparently not illegal to drink and drive in Finland, or Mige and Ville just didn't care, and after a few drinks of some sort of green liquid that Ville had in a water bottle, I decided that I didn't care either.

I found that my mind was speeding up, and I didn't feel drunk, just... weird. Shifty, almost.

"Ville, what is that stuff?"

He turned back towards me and grinned. "Absinthe. Like it?"

I considered it and realized that I did. "Yeah, feels good."

I continued to drink from the bottle and it seemed that in no time at all we were at Ville's apartment.

I crawled out of the car and followed Ville up the stairs, Mige following me with my bags because he had been worried that I would fall down the stairs if I tried carrying my stuff myself. When we got to the apartment we were greeted by a half-naked, and more than half-drunk Linde.

It was barely two o'clock in the afternoon, and already the four of us were working on some major hangovers.

I set my stuff down on Ville's bed and made my way into his kitchen to dig around for food, I hadn't eaten since I got up this morning at six.

Since Ville had a diet that consisted of mostly celery, peanut butter, alcohol, and coffee, that was what was in the fridge. As well as a can of whipped cream that didn't I even want to consider the purpose of.

"Ville, I'm hungryyyy!" I whined as he walked into the room.

He blinked and glanced down at his stomach, which I assumed had started growling. "Hmm, me too. Mige! To Sinenin Ankka!"

Mige whooped and I assumed whatever 'Sinenin Ankka' was, he approved. Linde, now with a shirt, a pair of boxers and rain boots on, led the way through the apartment building.

We all piled into the car again, this time Ville was in the backseat with me, sitting sideways against the door with his legs thrown over mine because they were too long to fit between the seats. I had continued drinking from Ville's water bottle after Linde had told me it would make me 'trip my balls off', and I wanted to see what he meant. I poked at Ville's kneecap through the hole in his jeans, my muddled mind finding the rough skin very interesting.

We parked in front of an obnoxiously blue building and the green liquid made getting out of the car a lot harder than getting in it had been. When I tripped and fell into Ville he took the bottle away, telling me to take it slow for a bit. I didn't particularly want to, but I figured that Ville knew more about that stuff than I did.

We sat down in a corner booth, me squished in between Ville and Linde. As they translated the menu for me I realized that none of the items on it had any meat in them, and figured that was why the three boys liked the place so much.

After ordering our food and a round of beers the boys started talking band stuff and I relaxed in my seat, content to watch them. Ville and Mige dominated the conversation, and Linde interjected occasionally in his calm -and slightly slurred- voice.

I watched the rapt expressions on their faces and suddenly wished for my sketchbook, which I had left back at Ville's. I glanced down at the rosary around Ville's neck and imagined him with a halo around his head and the expression he was currently giving Mige, and giggled.

Ville glanced over at me. "What'cha laughing about, blondie?"

I giggled again. "You look like Jesus."

Mige started laughing and Linde launched into a conspiracy theory about Jesus actually being the anti-Christ and a satanist and having all the Christians fooled that made me contemplate alcohol being the only substance affecting his mind.

XxXxX

We made our way home an hour later and then watched movies in Ville's bed for the next five hours.

At nine I untangled myself from the three of them and made my way to Ville's bathroom to shower so I wouldn't be completely disgusting in the morning. Ville had apparently changed clothes while I was in the shower, and when he walked into the bathroom to pee he had on a pair of black jeans with a sheer black shirt and biker boots.

I was in my underwear and had the two different outfits I had packed laid out on the counter, trying to decide between the two. I could either go with the dark red lace dress that made me look like a 'hot naughy whore', in Sasha's words, or the strapless black dress and lace tights, 'hot classy whore', outfit.

I decided on the black dress. When I finally wrestled the skin-tight outfit on, not an easy thing to do while half-drunk, Ville was standing in front of the mirror trying to tame his curly hair. It didn't like doing what he wanted, which usually led to him shoving a hat down over it.

I knew how he felt, my hair wasn't curly like his, but it did have quite a wave. I decided against messing with straightening or curling it, and instead put it in a french braid that ended in a bun at the nape of my neck.

I glanced over at Ville, who was watching me. "Want some makeup?"

He shrugged but seemed interested, so I got out a grey and a black eye pencil and and lined his eyes heavily with both, so that they had kind of a smokey look.

When I finished he put his hands on my shoulders and used them to steer me towards the wall where he had just been standing, "shove over, love," and started digging through my makeup bag.

I'd learned long ago that Ville was damn good at applying makeup, though I never saw him wear more than eyeliner. I guessed it was an artist thing.

He pulled out a dark grey eyeshadow and put it on my eyelids with his fingertip. He added thick black eyeliner to the top of my eye and electric blue to the bottom.

When he finished I pulled on my shoes- knee high, leather, stiletto heel boots. And then turned to check out the result. Ville smiled at the two of us in the mirror. "We make one sexy fucking pair."

XxXxX

It was a couple hours later and I was lit like a firecracker. Ville, next to me and equally drunk, was laughing and talking to Mige with his arm around his shoulder, and I suspected he couldn't stay up by himself.

I had made friends with a redheaded girl when I was dancing with her and she had asked me if I wanted to go to the bar with her, in an American accent. Instantly I'd had to introduce her to my friends, and dragged her off to find them.

That had led to the girl -Mila, Maria, Mikaila?- making out with one of Ville's black haired friends -Jyrki or Jussi, I still hadn't figured out which was which- and me trying to help Mige keep Ville in his chair. The other black haired guy, I was pretty sure this one was the one that answered the door for me all those months ago -did that make him Jyrki or Jussi?- was next to me trying to keep me upright.

I turned to him and grabbed his hand as I stood up. "Dance with me!" I grinned in a way that I hoped he couldn't say no to, and tugged on his hand.

We danced a few songs and then I felt someone come up behind me and warm arms wrapped around my waist. Arms that I realized were covered in tattoos that I knew all too well when I glanced down. I was suprised he was standing, let alone dancing.

Jyrki/Jussi grinned at Ville over my shoulder. He had a look in his eyes that made me think that I might have gotten a bit in over my head. Ville's head rested on the top of my head -I was _that _short- and suddenly whateverhisnamewas leaned forward and they were kissing. Right. Above. Me.

My jaw dropped open and I was too... we'll go with shocked... to care that I looked like a fish.

And then Ville's arms retracted until just his hands were on my hips and the other guy pulled back from him and I thought we were going to dance again until I realized that he was leaning towards me. His eyes were really blue close up. And then he was kissing me and I was thinking about how I wanted it to be Ville kissing me instead until I realized how rude that was and went back to trying to decide whether it was Jyrki or Jussi that was kissing me.

When he finally pulled back from me I noticed that the part of Ville's body that was pressing into me had gotten a lot -ahem- _firmer _than it was before. I flushed. I knew I wouldn't ever act on it, but there was some definite threesome potential here.

We continued dancing until the other black haired guy pulled Ville away from me and told the three of us that it was four a.m., and the club was closing.

XxXxX

Another one of Ville's friends, this one with short brown hair -I really needed to learn their names, it'd been months- dropped the four of us off at Ville's apartment.

We were all stumbling drunk and passed out as soon as we made it to a suitable sleeping surface; me, Ville, and Linde in the bed, and Mige in the bathtub- it was closer to the toilet, he said.

I was not thrilled to wake up an hour and a half later for school when my phone alarm went off. Even after a shower and three cups of coffee, I was still not entirely sure I was completely sober.

I dried my hair and put it in a tail and then pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater, with nice, conservatice Keds. I smiled at my reflection in the mirror- I felt like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.


	4. Chapter 4

Claire laid in the floor in front of her couch, watching Ville sway drunkenly to the loud rock music pumping through the stereo system, whiskey in hand sloshing perilously close to the rim of the glass.

She giggled. She might be a little drunk, but Ville was _smashed._ There would be no walking home for him tonight. He would have to sleep over at her apartment. The thought made her half giddy, and half anxious as hell. She didn't have a spare bed and her couch wasn't even big enough for her to sleep on, his long body would never fit.

"Dance with me!" He stumbled over to her and pulled her up from the floor, the weight shift almost making him lose his balance. He set his now empty glass down on her coffee table with a slightly too loud _'clank!'_.

As they shifted back to the middle of her living room the cigarette in his hand made it's way to his lips and his hands clasped her hips. They swayed to the rock music that Ville had turned on. Well, Claire swayed, Ville stumbled.

"Drunk much?" She asked as he spun her.

"Oh, darlin', you haven't seen _nothing _yet. If I'm still standing, I'm not drunk enough." His words were slurred, but Claire had gotten pretty good at deciphering his drunken ramblings.

They waltzed through Claire's living room until Ville finally admitted defeat to the alcohol and needed to sit down.

He put his arm around her. "Claire, darlin'. You know I love you right?" Ville was giving her an intense look and Claire nodded. "I think that we should be more than friends. Like, lovers, or something." He slurred.

Claire's heart was racing but she knew not to take anything Ville said while drunk at face value. "Why don't you tell me that in the morning, when you're sober."

Ville nodded and Claire figured that would be the last she heard of that.

XxXxX

The next morning Ville was gone before I woke up. He'd ended up sleeping in my bed, but it wasn't nearly as much fun as I thought it would be because he'd gotten way too drunk and passed out and I had to stay up and make sure he was still breathing every hour or so. And, he'd snored. So I'd ended up being up all night and sleeping all day, and when I'd woken there was nothing left of Ville except a tshirt thrown across one of my kitchen chairs.

But I wasn't dwelling. It was another night, another party, and I was following Ville to the bar for what would only be our third or fourth drink of the night. Ville had stayed suprisingly sober all night, and insisted I do the same.

I watched Ville walk in front of me. He looked dark and sexy as ever in destroyed jeans and chunky boots. I felt pretty sexy myself in black leggings, my favorite hooker boots, and a black lace bandeau top.

Ville led us to a back corner of the bar and sat down on a barstool, pulling the one next to him out for me to sit on. "What's up, Zilla? You're not acting like your usual alcoholic self today."

"Wanted to talk to you before we got smashed." I took the seat next to him and ordered a fireball shot from the female bartender that was hovering near us, giving Ville sultry looks.

"I, uh..." Ville stopped awkwardly as the bartender returned with my drink and I took it from her, resisting the urge to smash her face into the bar. "I wanted to let you know that I remember what I said the other night, about us being together. And I meant it."

I blinked at him, not sure what to say. "So you want to like, be my boyfriend...?"

"Pretty much." Ville grinned.

"Okay then." I smiled back at him, took my shot and stood up. "Let's dance, boyfriend."


	5. Chapter 5

"You're crazy."

"Oh, come on! It'll be fun."

"No."

"Claaaaaire. Don't you love me?"

"No." But I knew I couldn't resist his puppy dog eyes for much longer, and so did he.

"It won't hurt that bad."

I couldn't believe I was sitting in the floor of one of the most famous men in Finland, discussing what would be my first tattoo... _If _I agreed to it.

The design was something I had mentioned I might possibly want tattooed while I was drinking with HIM one night. Two weeks later I had forgotten all about it and Ville had drawn up a stencil.

I glanced back down at the paper. It _was _beautiful. The tattoo I had drunkenly designed with Ville was a picture of a swallow with a sprig of lily-of-the-valley flowers clutched in it's claws, the national flower of Finland.

Ville had drawn it all out in beautiful colors and added his own signature near one of the little birds wings. The more I looked at it, the more I wanted to get it. And with Ville looking at me like that...

"Fine." He beamed. "But I require my own bottle of whiskey for this."

After retrieving my bottle of whiskey Ville called one of his tattoo artist friends and before I could even think about it we were out the door and getting into a cab headed for the other side of Helsinki.

"Ville are you suuuure this is a good idea?"

"It's a great idea. Here, have some more whiskey..."

After about four more shots for me, and two for Ville, as I decided to share with him, we were at another apartment complex in an even worse part of town than Ville's was. I was nervous, but now I was full of liquid courage, too.

Ville's tattoo artist friend was a big burly man with huge hands that dwarfed mine when he shook my hand. He led us into his living room, where he had his couch and coffee table set up with his tattoo equipment and about thirty different colors of ink.

Ville handed him his drawing and the two of them chatted in Finnish for a minute before he turned to me. "So where are we going to put this, lovey?"

"My shoulder blade." I gestured to my left shoulder. He nodded and motioned for me to turn around. I felt him lightly touching my shoulder for a second and then he was off to the table to draw a stencil.

Ville threw his arm over my shoulder and we settled into the couch to wait.

I sat back against the couch cushion to watch him while he leaned forward to watch his friend draw my tattoo. We'd been dating a month now and I didn't think I'd ever felt this alive in my life. Life with Ville was so passionate and intense and I loved it.

He was watching his friend, who I was thinking was named Tero, with furrowed eyebrows and interested eyes. He had a fascination with tattoos and the process of creating them that was nearly an obsession.

Tero- I think- finished the stencil way too fast for my liking and then I found myself face down on his couch, minus my shirt. I took another shot of the whiskey and the last thing I remember was telling him that I was going to pass out now and to please wake me up when it was finished.

XxXxX

When I woke up several hours later I was in Ville's bed with an itchy pain in my shoulder. I shot up, remembering why my shoulder hurt.

I waded my way through the clothes on the floor to Ville's bathroom mirror and grinned. The tattoo was beautiful. There was almost no black in the whole thing and the tattoo stood out brightly against my pale skin.

I looked up to see Ville standing in the doorway and turned to face him. He was smiling and I didn't think I'd ever been so happy in my life.


	6. Chapter 6

"_So that's it, you're just going to leave?"_

"_I don't know!"_

"_Do what you want and fuck the rest of us?!" Ville was yelling now. Pacing back and forth and I could tell he was angry. _

_And now I was angry, too. "This is my career, Ville! This is my future, and the rest of my life! This is important!" I slapped my hand over my mouth._

_He stopped pacing. "And, I'm what…? Not important?"_

_His eyes were cold and I'd never seen him look at me that way before. "Well there's the fucking door, Claire. You can see yourself out."_

"_Ville-"_

"_Get out."_

xXxXxXx

I lay watching my toes wiggle in the bubbles of my bath, feeling disconnected from everything. But that might have been the vodka.

It had been two days since I'd seen or talked to Ville and we had broken up. I was starting to feel like I had withdrawls from an addiction.

I couldn't tell who I was more mad at- Ville, or myself.

Sure, we fought, but I was so much happier when I was with him. Everything felt more wonderful and intense. I felt more alive. So was losing him really worth my stupid pride?

I bit my lip, now worried I had made a mistake in my drunken haze that night. And I hadn't sobered up since then to be able to really tell.

I wondered if Ville was thinking about me, wherever he was. Was he thinking that he'd made a mistake, letting me go like that? Was he missing me?

Was he with another girl? That would kill me.

I sat up, having decided that I would call him. Though that, too, could have been the vodka.

I grabbed one of Ville's hoodies off my bedroom floor and flopped down on my bed, cell phone in hand.

The phone rang four times before Ville's voice answered. "Hullo? Claire?"

"Hey. What're you up to?"

I heard a thump in the background as Ville set down something heavy. "I was just working on a song. Why are you calling?"

"I, um. I dunno. I just wanted to talk to you. I might be a little drunk. I'm sorry. Would you rather I didn't?"

He paused. "It's not that. It's just, I think you made it pretty clear you didn't want anything to do with me."

"I think I might have been wrong about that."

"About what?"

"Breaking up with you."

There was another pause. "What makes you say that?"

This time I was the one that didn't know what to say. "I don't know. I just know that these past couple days without you have been miserable for me. And I know I'm so much happier when I'm with you."

"They've been miserable for me, too. I miss you, sweetheart."

I felt tears well up in my eyes. "I miss you, too." Despite my best efforts, my voice was thick when I answered. "Can you come over?"

He sighed and for a second I was worried that he would turn me down. "Let me find some pants."

XxXxX

When I woke the next morning, Ville was still asleep. He lay peacefully, and naked in the sunlight streaming in through my window.

When I stood up tears were running down my face.

Slowly I walked to my closet, dressed, and started packing.

I got the essentials. Clothes, laptop, toothbrush. I would have the college send someone over to get the rest. I picked my sketchbook up and flipped through to the last picture I drew. It was of Ville, sleeping in my bed a week ago, naked from the waist up. The sunlight in the window made his face glow. I pulled the picture out and set it down next to him on the pillow.

And then I left.

I was going home.


End file.
